[Jax.PM] Meetings

[Jason Proctor]

>> I know that J will catch the :other than Perl: open source air of 
>> the event/meeting. 

*dingdingding*  Give the man a cookie.  :)


>> So, assuming overlap, and reselling issues, I would 
>> venture there are about 100-200 people in the Jacksonville area 
>> that are NOT yet members.

I'd say there are a million or so people in the area who aren't members;
there are up to a couple hundred of them who *might* be using Perl.  I
have a Python book and quite a few Java books, and I really don't use
either on a significant enough basis to even bother with a mailing list. 


>> We plan to meet in May (it would take that long for me to get 
>> anything of interest from vendors) -  We could plan a simple
>> #!perl -w
>> print "Hello Jax!";
>> 
>> With introductions to Perl, Perl in general, our group, and some 
>> demonstrations about Perl.  The whole "presentation" would last at 
>> the most 2 hours -- maybe four if there is a "lot" of interest.

Chances are, almost everyone that would be interested in going is already
on this mailing list (or knows someone who is).  I'd be happy if you 
proved me wrong, but I don't see a "presentation" doing as well as a
"let's get together and have some food, chat a little, etc."  Very few of
us consider programming fun enough that we want to hear about it in our
"off" time.  


> I like the basic plan. Lets keep this meeting as simple and adjustable
> as possible.  Do you really think vendors will be interested in such a
> small meeting?
> 
> I will put a message out to the Gainesville PM as well to see if anyone
> there would be interested in attending.  If we get enough interest (4
> people :) we might be able to arrange to meet in Strake or some other
> middle ground.

Ooh!  Starke!  Now there's a hotbed of leading business technology.  Maybe
we could get some strawberry farmers and some guards from Raiford.

Joking aside, you're more likely to get people to show up by offering free
pizza and calling it "Northeast Florida Geek Day".  Get the LUGs, etc. in
on it.  Let all the geek clubs set up tables with propaganda.  Ideally,
get someplace with electricity and an Internet connection. :)  Vendors
(i.e. O'Reilly, Manning, probably a non-publisher of some sort) would
probably donate stuff for door prizes or somesuch rather than set up a
booth.  Get a local biz to cover the pizza and/or the location in exchange
for "sponsored by" on every flat surface.

Sometime in mid-May, Ottawa.pm is hosting a mini-yapc focused on Perl
(and open source) advocacy.  Or that's what they announced several months
ago; it's not actually listed on the yapc site, and is mentioned only in
passing on Ottawa.pm's site.  

Aside: the "real" yapc is in Boca Raton in June; anyone going?  On
consideration, immediately before or after this conference is my most
likely time for a trip through Jax.

Anyway, what would be really cool is the "Northeast Florida Open Source
Expo" sponsored by ORA (and/or whoever) taking over the convention center
for a couple of days.  Somehow I don't see this happening in the next few
years, but it's nice to dream big.


j